Crime and Punishment

What's inside (8 sections)

1. A hot garret and a terrible idea
2. Fever, police stations, and Porfiry Petrovich
3. The Marmeladovs and Sonya
4. Dunya, Luzhin, Razumikhin, and Svidrigailov
5. Confession, Siberia, and what the ending actually says
6. What I loved and what wore me down
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I put off Crime and Punishment for years because everyone talks about it like homework. Russian names, six parts plus an epilogue, guilt and God and a murder on page whatever. Then a friend told me it reads more like a thriller than a classic, and that got me. I read the Penguin Classics edition, the David McDuff translation, 671 pages, published in 2002 with the novel first appearing in 1866. He was right. I finished it in about ten days, mostly late at night, and I kept thinking about Raskolnikov while making coffee in the morning.

This is a full retelling, so I will spoil everything. That is the point of these notes. If you want only the setup, here it is short. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a broke ex law student in St Petersburg, kills an old pawnbroker named Alyona Ivanovna with an axe because he has talked himself into believing he is allowed to. Her half sister Lizaveta walks in at the wrong moment and he kills her too. Then he spends the rest of the book sick, paranoid, arguing with everyone, being hunted politely by a detective named Porfiry Petrovich, and being loved stubbornly by a young woman named Sonya Marmeladova until he finally confesses and goes to Siberia.

What surprised me was how little of the book is about whether he will get caught. Dostoevsky tells you who did it almost at once. The tension is whether Raskolnikov can live inside his own head after doing it.

A hot garret and a terrible idea

Raskolnikov lives in a tiny garret room near Haymarket Square. The ceiling is so low you feel it when he stands up. He has dropped out of university because he has no money. His landlady keeps threatening him for rent. His clothes are rags. He eats rarely. His sister Dunya, Avdotya Romanovna, and his mother Pulcheria Alexandrovna send what they can from the provinces, and it shames him.

He has written an article once, published in a journal, arguing that certain extraordinary men stand above ordinary moral law. Napoleon is his example. Lycurgus, Solon, Napoleon, men who broke old laws to make new ones and were not criminals but benefactors, in his theory. Ordinary people must obey. Extraordinary people may step over blood if their idea requires it. He half believes it and half wants to believe it because he is hungry and proud and angry at the world.

Alyona Ivanovna is a widow, about sixty, who lends small sums on pledges and charges brutal interest. Raskolnikov has pawned his father's silver watch to her and a ring that belonged to his sister. He visits her flat to look the place over, pretending to pawn a cigarette case. He notes the layout, the chest of drawers, the bedroom where she keeps money, the fact that her sister Lizaveta, simple and kind and constantly bullied, is often out at certain hours selling laundry.

He also overhears things that push him. In a tavern he hears a student say Alyona is a louse sucking the poor, that one death could save a hundred lives, that Lizaveta would be better off. Later he learns Lizaveta will be away at seven the next evening. It feels to him like fate lining up.

I found these early chapters sweaty and close. Dostoevsky stays right behind Raskolnikov's shoulder. The heat, the smell of the stairs, the dust, the landlady's cabbage soup, the pawnbroker's thin neck with the collar. Raskolnikov tells himself he is only rehearsing. He steals an axe from the porter's lodge, ties a fake pledge of wood wrapped to look like a cigarette case so her hands will be busy, and goes up the stairs.

The murder itself is ugly and clumsy. He hits Alyona with the blunt side of the axe, then the sharp side. He takes her keys, opens the chest, fills his pockets with trinkets and money he barely looks at. He is about to leave when Lizaveta comes in carrying a bundle. She sees him and does not scream. He brings the axe down on her too. Then he nearly gets caught by two visitors ringing the bell, hides behind the door, slips downstairs behind them, returns the axe, and goes back to his room shaking.

He does not spend the money. He hides most of it under a stone in an empty courtyard. That detail stuck with me. This was never really about cash. It was about proof. And the proof fails at once, because he feels sick rather than great.

Fever, police stations, and Porfiry Petrovich

The middle of the book is Raskolnikov ill in bed for days, burning with fever, half conscious, nursed by his friend Razumikhin and the cook Nastasya. Razumikhin, Dmitry Prokofych, is the opposite of Raskolnikov. Big, loud, kind, practical, a poor student too but always finding work, translating German pamphlets, pulling people together. He brings a doctor named Zossimov. He buys Raskolnikov shirts. He falls in love with Dunya almost at first sight, which turns out to matter a lot.

While Raskolnikov drifts, the investigation starts. The police chief Nikodim Fomich is decent. His assistant Ilya Petrovich, nicknamed Gunpowder for his temper, shouts at Raskolnikov over the rent complaint and does not suspect him yet. Porfiry Petrovich, the examining magistrate, is the one to watch. He is in his thirties, dressed sloppily, coughing, smiling, offering tea and cigarettes, pretending to be scattered. He has read Raskolnikov's article about extraordinary men. He invites Raskolnikov and Razumikhin to his office to chat about it.

These scenes are the best in the book for me. Porfiry never accuses directly. He asks how a criminal from the article would behave. Would he leave traces. Would he return to the scene. Would he get sick. Raskolnikov, proud and feverish, lectures about his theory while Porfiry nods. Razumikhin argues loudly that no theory excuses crime. Porfiry watches Raskolnikov's hands shake.

Twice Raskolnikov almost gives himself away. He faints at the police station when the murder is discussed. Later he goes back to Alyona's flat and asks the workmen about blood on the door, which looks insane. He shouts at a stranger that he is a murderer, then claims it was a joke. He helps a drunk man hit by a carriage and gives away his last money, then regrets being kind because kindness does not fit his idea of himself.

Porfiry plays a long game. He arrests a painter named Mikolka who worked in the flat and falsely confesses, partly from religious frenzy and partly because others pressured him. Porfiry knows Mikolka did not do it. He tells Raskolnikov straight out near the end that he knows, but says he has no hard proof that would hold, and that waiting will bring a confession. He offers him a way to lessen the sentence if he comes forward now. Come and confess, he says, it will be better for you. That mix of threat and pity is pure Porfiry.

There is a lot of pacing whiplash here. One chapter is a tight interrogation where every word counts. The next is Raskolnikov wandering the streets for twenty pages, bumping into people, thinking in circles. I liked the circles because they feel true to guilt, but I will admit I skimmed some of the street wandering on tired nights.

The Marmeladovs and Sonya

Before the murder, Raskolnikov meets Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov in a tavern. Marmeladov is a retired clerk who drinks everything, weeps while he talks, quotes scripture, and tells strangers that his daughter Sonya has gone on the street to feed the family. His wife Katerina Ivanovna is consumptive, proud, once educated, now coughing blood and beating her stepchildren in fits of despair. The kids are little, Polenka, Kolya, Lida. They live in one cold rented corner.

Sonya Semyonovna Marmeladova is about eighteen. She wears a bright shawl and a shabby dress that marks her trade, and she is deeply religious in a plain way. She reads the Gospel. She gives her money to Katerina. She does not judge Raskolnikov when he seeks her out.

Raskolnikov goes to their lodging after Marmeladov is crushed by a carriage in the street. He had been drinking, stumbled under the horses. Raskolnikov pays for the doctor, stays while the man dies, gives money he cannot afford. Katerina, half mad with grief, later organizes a funeral dinner she cannot pay for, invites lodgers who mock her, quarrels with her German landlady Amalia Ivanovna, and drags the children into the street to sing for coins. It is painful to read. She dies soon after, coughing blood in the street, and Raskolnikov's money helps place the children with strangers.

Sonya becomes the center of his confession, not the police. He goes to her room, a strange partitioned room with a door that does not lock properly, and tries to force his theory on her. He asks if Luzhin should live and do evil or if Katerina should die. He tells her Lizaveta, who was Sonya's friend, is dead. Then he tells her he killed them. Sonya does not run. She says go to the crossroads, kiss the earth you have defiled, confess openly, accept suffering. She reads him the story of Lazarus from her worn Gospel book, the one Lizaveta gave her. He resists for hundreds of pages, but he keeps returning to her room because she is the only person who sees him clearly and stays.

I cried a little at the Lazarus scene, which embarrassed me. It is not subtle. Candle light, trembling hands, a murderer and a forced prostitute reading about raising the dead. But it earns its weight because Dostoevsky has shown you exactly how poor and tired they both are.

Dunya, Luzhin, Razumikhin, and Svidrigailov

Raskolnikov's mother and sister come to Petersburg, and that brings a second plot that kept me turning pages faster than the detective part.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna is gentle and anxious, writing long letters full of love and bad news. Dunya is beautiful, proud, and strong. To save Raskolnikov, Dunya agreed to marry Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, a pompous lawyer in his forties with money and connections. Luzhin thinks he is buying gratitude. He talks about a wife needing to be poor so she will owe him everything. He is vain about his new clothes and his ideas about political economy. Raskolnikov hates him on sight and orders Dunya not to marry him.

Luzhin tries to split Raskolnikov from everyone. He stays with a progressive young clerk named Lebezyatnikov, who parrots fashionable talk about communes and free love while Luzhin uses him for respectability. At the funeral dinner for Marmeladov, Luzhin plants a hundred rouble note in Sonya's pocket, then accuses her of stealing it in front of everyone to shame Raskolnikov. Lebezyatnikov, to his credit, speaks up and says he saw Luzhin slip the note in. Raskolnikov exposes him. Dunya throws Luzhin off. It is satisfying, though the trick is so crude you wonder how Luzhin thought it would work.

Razumikhin steps into the gap. He protects Pulcheria and Dunya, finds them rooms, watches over Raskolnikov when he is impossible, and never asks for thanks. His love for Dunya is obvious and decent. Late in the book they grow close, and you feel they will marry. I liked Razumikhin more each time he appeared, partly because he is the only major character who sleeps well and eats normally.

Then there is Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, and he is trouble in a good way. He is about fifty, the former employer of Dunya in the provinces. He chased her, his late wife Marfa Petrovna paid Dunya off to hush gossip, and now he follows Dunya to Petersburg claiming love. He is polite, tired, amused by everything, and possibly a murderer himself. Rumors say he poisoned his wife, that a young servant girl died after he abused her, that a boy he hired died. He never confirms or denies much. He gives money to Katerina's children, which is generous and also creepy because you cannot tell his motive.

Svidrigailov rents the room next to Sonya and hears everything through the thin wall. He knows Raskolnikov killed Alyona and Lizaveta. He uses it to pressure Dunya. He lures her to his rooms, says he can save her brother with his money and silence if she will be his. Dunya pulls a revolver she borrowed, shoots twice, grazes his head the second time. He tells her to shoot again, stands close, says he loves her. She cannot. She throws the gun away. He lets her go.

That night Svidrigailov wanders Petersburg in the rain. He gives money to a young fiancee he had been toying with, pays for a boy in a hotel, checks into a squalid room, talks to no one, and shoots himself in the head at dawn by a watchtower. His suicide shook me more than the murders. He understood his own emptiness perfectly and did nothing with the knowledge except pay a few bills before leaving.

Fair warning, Svidrigailov sometimes feels like a device. He shows up exactly where the plot needs him, hears exactly what he needs to hear, has money exactly when orphans need it. Dostoevsky also repeats his point about him. Yes, he is Raskolnikov's dark mirror, a man beyond morals who found only boredom. I got it the first three times.

Confession, Siberia, and what the ending actually says

After Svidrigailov's death, Raskolnikov runs out of moves. Porfiry has told him confession will help. Sonya has told him suffering will clean him. Dunya begs him to face it. His mother is fading and confused, and he knows Siberia will kill her by grief even if no one tells her directly.

He does what Sonya asked. He goes to a crossroads, kneels in the dusty square, kisses the ground while people laugh at the drunk fool, then walks to the police station. He tries to back out twice. He asks for a moment outside. Then he goes in and confesses to Nikodim Fomich and Ilya Petrovich that he killed Alyona and Lizaveta with an axe and stole from the chest.

The trial is summarized quickly. His confession, his illness, testimony from Razumikhin and others, Sonya's presence, help him get eight years in Siberia rather than death or a longer term. Dunya marries Razumikhin. Pulcheria dies of fever, still half believing her son will return soon. Sonya follows Raskolnikov to Siberia, lives nearby, sews and teaches, visits him through the fence. The other convicts dislike Raskolnikov at first because he is proud and silent and does not pray. They love Sonya and call her little mother.

The epilogue splits readers. Raskolnikov does not repent for a long time. He still thinks his only mistake was weakness, that he should have been stronger and felt less. He is jealous that Sonya suffers for him. Then he gets ill again, dreams of a plague of pride where everyone believes they possess truth and kills each other over it, and wakes changed. One morning by the river, with the wide Siberian steppe and the tents of nomads across the water, he looks at Sonya and understands he loves her. He falls at her feet. She knows something has shifted. Dostoevsky says their new life would be the subject of another book, and stops.

I found the ending moving but fast. After 600 pages of close thought, the change comes in a few pages with little argument. If you wanted a clear scene where Raskolnikov accepts God or accepts guilt in words, you do not get it. You get love by a river and a promise of gradual renewal. I accepted it because Sonya's patience had been shown so fully, but I can see why some readers feel cheated.

What I loved and what wore me down

What I loved most was the people. Not ideas about people, but small habits. Nastasya bringing soup and scolding Raskolnikov like a brother. Razumikhin shouting then apologizing then fixing something with his hands. Katerina Ivanovna trying to keep her dead husband's uniform brushed while coughing. Lizaveta smiling shyly and mending clothes. Porfiry offering tea while tightening a net. Dunya holding steady when men try to buy her. Sonya lighting a candle stub and finding the page. St Petersburg itself feels like a character, damp stairwells, yellow wallpaper, taverns full of smoke, pawnshops, police offices, hay carts, heat that will not lift.

The interrogation chapters are superb. Porfiry and Raskolnikov circling the article, the talk of ordinary versus extraordinary men, the question of whether a great man would feel pain after blood, those pages made me put the book down and stare at the wall. Svidrigailov and Dunya with the revolver is pure suspense. The funeral dinner where Luzhin is exposed is grim comedy I did not expect from Dostoevsky.

What wore me down is real too. The book repeats. Marmeladov gives the same speech twice. Katerina coughs and curses and forgives in the same rhythm. Raskolnikov thinks I am a louse, no I am Napoleon, no I am a louse, for a hundred pages. Some of that is the point, guilt loops, but it still drags in the middle of part four and part five.

Coincidence does a lot of work. Everyone meets in the same tavern. Svidrigailov happens to rent next to Sonya. Razumikhin happens to know Porfiry. Dunya happens to have a gun that night. Raskolnikov happens to overhear Lizaveta's plans. Each one alone is fine. Together they make Petersburg feel like a village of ten people.

The women suffer a lot to save men. Sonya sells herself for her family and then waits years in Siberia for a man who barely speaks to her. Dunya nearly sells herself to Luzhin for her brother, then faces Svidrigailov with a gun. Katerina dies picturesque and pitied. Pulcheria dies of love. Dostoevsky respects them, especially Sonya and Dunya, and gives them will and sense. Still, the pattern tired me by the end. They endure while the men theorize.

Translation note, since editions differ a lot. I read McDuff, which reviewers call plain and close to the Russian, with lots of small patronymics and street names kept. Pevear and Volokhonsky is more voiced and springy, McDuff more flat and steady. Either will carry you. Just pick one with a good introduction and skip the introduction until after, because introductions spoil the Svidrigailov thread.

Should you read it. If you like psychological suspense and can stand heat and crowds and long talk, yes. Read it in chunks, not in one rush. Let Porfiry do his work slowly. Mark the Lazarus chapter and the crossroads chapter. Expect the first hundred pages to feel frantic and the last fifty to feel quiet. If you bounce off old novels because of slow starts, give it to page 120, past the murders and the first fever, before you decide.

I closed it thinking less about murder than about pride. Raskolnikov wanted to prove he was outside pity. Sonya, Razumikhin, Dunya, even Porfiry in his odd way, kept offering pity anyway until he could take it. That stayed with me longer than the axe.

FAQ

How should a first-time reader approach this long novel?

Start with the murder and the fever chapters, then read the Porfiry interviews and the Sonya scenes slowly. Those carry the meaning, while the side plots can be read faster.

Which translation does the 671-page edition cited here use?

The 671-page Penguin Classics edition uses the David McDuff translation from Russian. The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation is a different edition with its own ISBN, not this one.

Does Raskolnikov get away with the murders?

No. He confesses at a police station, serves eight years in Siberia, and Sonya follows him there. The epilogue closes with the start of his inner change, not a full resolution.